Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Rewards (and Their Differences from Motivations)
Last time I discussed motivation and the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Now we can go one step further to talk about rewards and the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Although motivation and rewards are both very critical to the design and implementation of gamification strategies, few gamification practitioners can articulate the subtle differences between intrinsic motivations vs. intrinsic rewards. Some even treat these distinctive concepts synonymously, which is ridiculously wrong. Since this post builds on the concepts introduced in my last post, if you haven’t read it yet, please take a few minutes to do so. It is critical to understand the fundamental concepts around motivation before jumping into today’s discussion. Review it here: Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation.Community vs. Social Network
Since 2008, “social media” has become a heavily-used buzz word in the corporate world. The question is “what is social media?” Many seem to equate social media to Facebook-liked social networking sites; others seem to think that they are blogs, the Twitter family of applications for micro-blogging, Flickr, YouTube, or similar type of content sharing Web 2.0 applications. Yet, answers to this question may still range from social collaboration sites (like Wikipedia, Delicious, or Digg) to online communities (like those we host for our enterprise clients or Yahoo! Answer). Well, they are all correct to some extent, and these are functional classifications of social media. Author and blogger Brian Solis, introduced another classification of social media, based on the types of conversation. He called it the conversation prism. However, if you want to understand social media from a relational and social anthropological perspective, you will find that there are really only two major types of social media:The 6 Factors of Social Media Influence: Influence Analytics 1
This post kicks off a multi-post miniseries on the topic of influencers: how to find them, engage them, and collaborate with them in word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing programs. Influence marketing today is in a state of experimentation that scientists call the pre-paradigm phase or exploratory phase. During this phase, everyone is trying different approaches based on experience. There are incomplete theories about why some approaches work and others fail, but there is no underlying fundamental principle that explains everything.Gamification 101: The Psychology of Motivation
Game mechanics and game dynamics are able to positively influence human behavior because they are designed to drive the players above the activation threshold (i.e. the upper right of the ability-motivation axis), and then trigger them into specific actions. In other words, successful gamification is all about making these three factors occur at the same time. As I mentioned last time, the temporal convergence is the key. Today, I will talk about the first factor in FBM: the science of motivation.The Magic Potion of Game Dynamics
When I kicked off this short-series on gaming last week I explained the various game related terminologies. Hopefully we are all on the same page now with the basics. If you are still unclear about the difference between game mechanics, game dynamics, and game theory, please take a minute to review Gamification from a Company of Pro Gamers. Now we are ready to talk about the cool and interesting stuff. Despite the ever growing list of game mechanics (and dynamics), there are actually some basic design principles behind all of them. And these principles are surprisingly simple. Once you have mastered these fundamental principles, you would be able to analyze the game dynamics and understand why and how they drive actions. You will also be able to understand why certain game dynamics work better than others in certain situations. Moreover, you can even use these fundamental principles to design your new game dynamics.What is Gamification, Really?
Earlier this month, I was invited to Wharton’s gamification symposium: “For the Win: Serious Gamification.” It was definitely a meeting of the minds with a very diverse group of participants ranging from game designers to policy makers straight from The White House. There were proponents of gamification, and some of the stories are reported on Knowledge@Wharton. Yet, there were also strong critics and opponents of the idea as well (see Gamification is Bull**bleep**). However, the goal is well-intended. We were all there to poke and probe gamification from multiple angles and put it through some of the most rigorous tests. The goal is to figure out what aspects of this idea will actually endure and last.From Weak Ties to Strong Ties: Community vs. Social Networks 3
Last time I talked about the first stage in any relationship: The formation of a weak tie or, how people become connected. It turns out that weak ties can form pretty much anywhere (in communities and through social networks). Creating a weak tie is the first and the easiest step in any relationship. Other than kinship, nearly all other social relationships start as weak ties. One can argue that even kinships start out weak, and it is only through the frequent family gatherings and interactions that kinships develop into strong relationships.How Do People Become Connected? Community vs. Social Networks 2
One of the areas I touched on previously was that social networks connect every single person on this planet. Moreover, research has confirmed the validity of a popular urban myth: six degrees of separation urban myth. Recent data and calculation suggests that most people are actually within 6 to 7 degrees of each other, so this myth still holds up in the modern web 2.0 era. Therefore you can, theoretically, reach and connect to any one of 6.8 billion people on this planet in relatively few steps. In reality, people don’t connect to the whole world. In fact, people don’t even connect with everyone who is living in the same city, going to the same school, or working in the same company as them. What prevents people from connecting?Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation—Clearing the Fog (not Fogg!)
Despite the fact that good gamification must drive the temporal convergence of motivation, ability, and trigger, most gamification applications focus solely on motivation. Some even proposed renaming “gamification” to “motivational design.” But many people are still very confused about what is motivation, and how it differs from rewards. What precisely is the difference between intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation? And how is that different from intrinsic vs. extrinsic rewards?
